


Cry

by Inopportunist



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Crying, Gen, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 07:25:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6648001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inopportunist/pseuds/Inopportunist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time it happens, he’s two weeks off lyrium and sicker than he can ever remember being.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cry

**Author's Note:**

> A response to the (rather ancient) request from the kinkmeme found here: http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/13429.html?thread=51637877#t51637877

The first time it happens, he’s two weeks off lyrium and sicker than he can ever remember being.

There, on the deck of the boat taking them to Jader, tears begin to leak from his bloodshot, swollen eyes. Partly, it’s the physical pain of the withdrawal, every joint in his body ringing with a bone-deep ache, his skin over-sensitive. Hunger tears through him, his stomach empty for the last several days, even as he salivates, the taste of vomit on his tongue, creeping up from the back of his throat. And he’s cold, not just from the icy spray of the sea, but from the lack of lyrium humming in his veins.

And he cries, cries as he hasn’t in ten years, not since they pulled him, weak and aching from the rotting pit the tower had become. He’d had no tears after, and at Greenfell, they’d plied him with lyrium until his heart was empty and dull. Even when the letter had come, Mia’s tidy scrawl informing him of their parents’ death in the Blight, there had been no aching burn of tears in his eyes or of sobs attempting to escape his throat.

But now, today, it’s catching up. Today, the pain is too much and the lyrium keeping him steady is gone. So he lets the tears trickle down his face, lower lip quivering when he thinks too much on things that are better left in the past, in the darkest corners of memory.

It’s been days since he slept, days since he ate, days, perhaps, since he’s spoken.

And it’s too much, made even worse when Varric sits next to him, back to the cabin on the deck, and simply says hello. The dwarf looks confused and concerned, but says nothing when Cullen slumps against him, sobbing brokenly into his shoulder.

 

\----

 

The second time seems without catalyst.

When he raises his head from where he's prostrate on the floor before the throne of the Divine, their eyes meet briefly. And when she smiles, he sees the kindness there, the forgiveness for all the horrible things he has wrought. His eyes mist over and his chest aches. But when she stands and takes him into her arms, he lets the tears flow silently as he wraps his arms around her frail, old form.

 

\----

 

Briefly, there is a third instance, frustrated tears only just welling in his eyes as he stares up at the growing gash in the sky above the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Or, where the Temple stood only moments ago.

He wonders why nothing can ever go right around him.

 

\----

 

Dorian walks in on him the fourth time, wondering why he hasn’t joined him for their usual afternoon chess match. He stands over the lyrium kit on his desk, fear and anger tangling at the admission of his own weakness. The tears drip down his face, spattering on the reports scattered over the surface. The Tevinter mage hesitates, looking as if he wishes to run in entirely the opposite direction. But he sees the slump of the Commander’s shoulders, hears the strangled, muffled sobbing, and he closes the door and stays.

Cullen is uncertain when the kit disappears from his gaze, his eyes so blurred he can only just make out the dark outline of his own gloved fists braced against the wood of his desk. And then there’s a hand, attempting to be soothing, rubbing circles on the back of his neck. He loses control of himself then, the sobs wrenching freely from his sore throat. And Dorian, unused to comforting others, can only pull him down into the chair behind the desk, hesitant but sincere as he runs his fingers through the Commander’s curls.

 

\----

 

He’s horrified the next time his eyes begin to sting. The Commander wants to stay in control for this, wants to appear strong even as the man he once called friend, once called Brother, sits wasted before him on the stone floor. But the burn comes anyway. Cullen leaves Samson with little warning, staring at the ground as he walks away, heavy-hearted. He shuts himself in the enclosed interrogation cell, where Leliana waits for his report.

The surprise on her face when she sees his tears is strange; he’d never thought she could be caught unawares.

“Cullen?” she questions, and the concern in her voice is too much.

He clenches his teeth but can stop neither the trembling of his lips nor the flood of self-hatred.

“I…” softly, voice raw, he attempts to respond. He wants to act like it doesn’t affect him, like he doesn’t feel that Samson’s fall is his fault. But the Spymaster sees through him, brow drawn in concern as his shoulders begin to shake.

When she moves for the door, cool relief washes over him. But she does not leave as he hopes. Instead she calls for one of her agents to find Cassandra. The muscles of Cullen’s stomach ache with the force of staying upright, of trying not to curl into himself. He wraps his arms around his armored body, suddenly cold.

“Is this because of Samson?” Leliana asks and the Commander can only nod in answer.

He sinks to his knees then, limbs weak, twisting and curling inward.

“I’m going to remove your armor,” she says, and it’s a statement, not a question. The numbness and shaking have overtaken him and he doesn’t protest, even when she cuts a few leather straps that she can’t get undone.

The knock comes not long after he’s finally sitting, still clutching at himself, but without the silverite that normally envelopes his form, both keeping out and holding in the bad, the wrongness. Leliana opens the door just wide enough for Cassandra to enter, blocking her from seeing Cullen’s aching, vulnerable figure just long enough to demand something more of her scout.

The Seeker stands rigid, observing the ex-Templar for a moment. Cullen imagines he can feel her eyes, her judgement falling upon him. He shouldn’t be here, she shouldn’t have chosen him; he’s too weak.

But then she settles on the floor in front of him, raising her hand slowly to rest on his shoulder.

He flinches briefly, but allows her touch. And it isn’t Dorian’s hesitant massaging or Varric’s silent acceptance or Justinia’s frail warmth. Her palm is broad and calloused, gripping him strongly, grounding him. Cassandra is a rock, weather-worn but solid, holding him in place even as he shakes. His breath wavers, sobs breaking loose as jagged exhalations.

Cullen doesn’t hear the second knock, but he does feel the warmth of the wool blanket as Leliana drapes it over his shoulders. Cassandra ptugs it tighter over him, and pulls him from his kneeling position to lean on her, his legs cast off to the side.

“Do you… wish to speak about it?”

Her voice rumbles through him, sharp through the haze of his fear and helplessness. He shakes his head, because his mouth cannot form words, his mind cannot sustain thought.

Leliana joins them on the floor then, another solid presence on his other side, tucked into the curve of his legs. She searches beneath the blanket for his hand, clenched tight as a gnarled claw at his side, clutching his own skin with bruising force. Under her fingers, he releases his grip, allowing her to twine their fingers together instead.

She hums a familiar tune even as his sobs shake the three of them where they sit.

 

\----

 

He does not cry, surprisingly, at the defeat of Corypheus or at the disbanding of the Inquisition two years later. And while he does get misty-eyed when he receives the letter from Cassandra, granting him land and the manor on its grounds for the treatment of lyrium addiction, the next time he truly cries is months after they leave the Exalted Council.

He leaves Skyhold without his armor of office, trading it for lighter leathers. But his hound trails after him and there’s a pleasantness to the heft of the pack he carries and the weight of the sword at his waist. Passing other travelers on his way, the former Commander of the Inquisition’s forces waves and nods, his sense of purpose renewed.

This is Cullen’s choice, more than joining the Inquisition was. His options are fully open, and he doesn’t have anyone else’s life to consider beyond his own (and his dog’s, but the great, slobbery beast would follow him anywhere). He is not trapped between maintaining the tenuous peace of Kirkwall, where he’d already proven himself a failure, or taking charge of the Inquisition’s army, where he’d barely kept himself alive and sane.

But he isn’t dead, and somehow he manages to smile.

It’s nearly two weeks before he reaches the small town at the edge of the Brecilian Forest. He realizes as he enters the town proper that he’d sent no letter ahead and that beyond South Reach, he has no idea of his family’s location. Unfortunately, it’s the dinner hour so no one is out and about on the dirt roads. But there is a small inn, not bustling, but not empty.

He asks a woman with a tray full of mead for the whereabouts of the Rutherford family as soon as he enters. She regards him suspiciously until Pup forces his way in through the door, though Cullen had told him to remain outside. The mabari settles at his feet and the barmaid is immediately charmed.

Following her directions leads him out of town, surprisingly back the way he came, and he recalls the farmhouse he’d seen on the way in. Pup trots happily at his side, but his steps slow as he draws closer. Anxiety crawls over him, and he begins to wonder if they will even want him there, he shouldn’t impose, he thinks. And then he reminds himself that his siblings are not the same children he remembers when he’d last seen them as he left for training at the age of thirteen. He anticipates the rift between them and their knowledge of each other. No longer the boy he’d been, he is more broken now, will they take him as he is? Will they mourn the loss of the determined boy and his easy smile?

Pup whimpers up at him, and Cullen realizes that he’s stopped completely, standing in the middle of the road. Not far ahead, he can make out a roof and the stream of smoke from his family’s hearth. He wonders vaguely, what would happen if he simply sat down and did not move from this spot. Would he ever find the motivation to get up again? And he realizes that the only thing pulling him to that house, toward his family, is his wish to see them, to reconcile with them if they will allow it.

His steps are still unsure, slower-paced, but he is moving again.

When he reaches the drive, he sees the sign that clearly says “Rutherford” hanging from a post and wonders how he missed it. Everyone must be inside or elsewhere, he thinks, because the yard is barren of all but a brood of plump hens and a sleepy looking hound that rises at his approach. Pup greets the other dog with an enthusiastic bark and it howls in response, clearly too old for the mabari’s playful greeting.

The squeal of hinges catches Cullen’s attention, a child poking his head out curiously, meeting his gaze and swiftly shutting the door. He raises an eyebrow at the boy’s wariness, but he is only a child, and Cullen… Cullen is a stranger.

He hears the child call to someone and again the door opens. This time, a perfect replica of his mother steps out, confusion crossing her face, then realization.

“Cullen?!” she calls, and then she’s rushing into his arms, sobbing. This is Mia, he knows, even if she’s nothing like the sixteen-year-old he’d last seen. She’s softer, and he vaguely recognizes that she’s quite heavy with child. The shock wears off, and he’s crying too, even as he sees Branson and Rosalie come to investigate the commotion. He almost laughs when he sees that Rosie, too, is pregnant, because he already can’t keep the names of his nieces and nephews straight. Branson is not quite as tall as Cullen, though perhaps just as broad and the Commander is glad to see that his little brother’s face is not near as covered in fine lines as his own, even though they are only four years apart. They swiftly throw their arms around him too and the four of them, reunited after over two decades, weep uncontrollably.

He hasn’t been this happy in years.


End file.
